When an experienced hearing device user replaces a hearing device, he or she has been used to, with a new hearing device, the new hearing device is adjusted (i.e. “fitted”) to the user's specific hearing impairment according to the same method as employed for a first time user, i.e. the hearing device settings are determined based on measurements of the corresponding user's personal audiogram. In practice, however, it has been shown that, especially for longtime users, the desired hearing device settings—such as gain, compression, limiting, knee-point or time constants—often deviate heavily from those derived from measurements of the user's audiogram. With the transition to a new hearing device, the experienced user would like to have the new hearing device adjusted in such a way that the settings match those of his or her old hearing device as closely as possible. In particular for users with a profound hearing loss, the required gain can depart by up to 20 dB from the target value calculated on the basis of the person's audiogram. In such cases a different approach for pre-adjusting the hearing device is desirable, namely one that is not based solely on the user's audiogram.
Reports from actual experience have revealed that adjustment of a new hearing device according to the settings of a user's prior hearing device represents a very effective and successful method of pre-adjustment, which Is often superior to schemes based solely on the user's audiogram.
Presently, no automated procedure is known which supports the above-mentioned method for pre-adjusting a new hearing device. One possible approach could consist of using a designated measurement apparatus to apply a test signal with various input levels to the user's old hearing device and record its response. Subsequently, these measurement results would have to be manually transferred to the fitting software required to appropriately adjust the new hearing device. This process would be very tedious and error-prone.
The object of the present invention is thus to provide a simple and efficient method to adjust a first hearing device based on the settings of a second hearing device.